This Week in Transport News – 8 June 2018

Former eThekwini Municipal City Manager Sibusiso Sithole has been appointed Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) Group CEO. Sithole replaces Cromet Molepo who had been acting in the role since last December. Sithole has been given a year to turn the rail agency around as his contract expires in 12 months effective as of 1 June. We hope his tenure will bring about stability at the parastatal. For more on this story: https://bit.ly/2sGpTcx

South African Airways

South African Airways CEO Vuyani Jarana has come under fire for hiring executives whose annual pay packages run into millions of rand. Among the executives are acting Head of Legal Mpati Qofa (R4.2 million), Regulatory Policy Officer Thabang Motsohi (R4 million), acting Head of Risk and Compliance Robert Newsome (R2.5 million). Jarana’s detractors say the new hires do not make sense given the airline should be implementing cost cutting measures and recently received another R5 billion from government, bringing the total amount of bailouts to R20 billion in 12 months. Jarana hit back saying the airline needed critical skills if it is to turn its fortunes around, that these skills did not come cheap. For more on this story: https://bit.ly/2xWy36q

Transnet
Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama has questioned the veracity of the Werksmans report that found the tender of 1064 locomotives had been inflated from R38.6 billion to R54 billion. The report implicates several Transnet executives including Gama, group manufacturing executive Thami Jiyane, Brian Molofe and Anoj Singh. Gama said none of the executive had been given a chance to interrogate the report. “The board, in its wisdom, found that there was a lack of understanding in the Werksmans report in terms of the inner workings of Transnet,” Gama said. He said the former board was “probably” correct in its stance that the report was inconclusive and incomplete. “So how do you act on a report that has not been finalised? It would be unfair to do that.” For more on this story: https://bit.ly/2sL9vbM